Naranth’s Weaver cell is based out of a conveniently-visible cafe in the Topiary district of Satyrine. (Meaning none but members or like-minded Weavers can even find the brick lined place with its slow service and its even slower courtyard service.)

Founded by Rota (3rd Degree), Heliophon (4th) and a rarely-present Kyrie (5th), the cell is run by the two non-human weavers, Vine and Grape. Second-degrees who have resisted promotion until “1 of them wins” the contest of vines in the courtyard, they are a fixture of the Cafe.

The upstairs is largely-open, railed, and full of pillows as well as boards for the Weaver game Spider.

There are many boards available in the cafe to play Spider – as many as needed, given the multi-dimensional and expansible nature of the game.

It was Grape (or is it Vine?) that Naranth defeated. They were playing in the warm indirect sun of the brick yard of the Cafe across 3 simultaneous boards across which Naranth was relatively certain he was losing. At a turning point in the game, the other owner showed up, and began to kibbitz on the game from the side to Naranth. And then, and then, the game scaled up, and then Rota excused Naranth as winner from the remainder of the game as the vines of the courtyard came to life and began to expand and strangle one another.

In a corner of “For What Ales You,” a quiet argument was transpiring between three Elderbrin. It gradually grew more animated (and less comprehensible) as the combatants reverted to their native language, replete with gestures, glottal stops, and incongruous transformations. Having had enough, one of the Elderbrin left with a dramatic flourish and a gesture that was as foreign as it was emphatic (and, perhaps, uniquely comprehensible, at least in its rudeness). As the Elderbrin left, he flashed a friendly, cheeky acknowledgement to the vislae who recognized him, from a few tables over.

Enkidu procured from the serverless magic table: a bourbon, chilled with ginger candy ice cubes; Naranth held a cup of liquid lightning, twisted with orange rind citrus over a scotch base.

A largely-sleepless Enkidu and Naranth reviewed the destruction, fire and overall plans of the night before‘s raid on the Undersling’s Red Market front for the Charnel Heart.

As the details surge and rise between them of who wanted interventions, and who banished their only evidence to the Blue Sun, who was responsible for murdering innocent johns and whores and setting fire to the Undersling, their perky server brought tea for Naranth and almond cookies ‘on the house’ to the pair.

Arriving fresh and early of hour, not only restored, but guided by Enkidu’s Aunt Crystal, Zerah joined them at the table, fresh beverage arising for him by magic.

“In less than 12 hours you did… that” was the most fitting tribute to their accomplishments of the night – and direct from Zerah’s mouth.

They spoke of their challenges to that point and their need to find Belladonna Bellanoir, as Naranth’s magic sparked intermittently into the metal bands of his chair.

They were beginning to consider their next steps – perhaps heading to the Confederacy of Cloisters to Goetic Hall to see about getting some help retrieving the records from Red Lantern Nights (the front for the Charnel Heart, if Boudon the Fisherman was to be believed).

Naranth found the label on the tea bag to say “Could have been arsenic” and the bottom of his cup bore a maker stamp of a broken heart. The blue haired waitress – in a shop renowned for its lack of human staff – was nowhere to be found. Before the vislae could decipher whether this was the warning of some hidden benefactor or a taunt by the Charnel Heart, the alehouse accepted yet another visitor, though this one not a patron.

A Strangeglass civil servant named Claret, with steel-grey hair and dressed in a pale mandarin coat, introduced himself to the vislae, and then requested Enkidu’s presence on behalf of the Viscount Dranian L’Strange, to answer a filed complaint. Deciding that honoring the request was the most practical response – particularly with the Thah waiting outside, the three vislae decided to answer the summons together. Claret took them to Memorial Park, with its floating gothic tower. With a flourish, and producing a key much similar in appearance to the wicked ones so sought after each keyfall, the elder gentleman let them inside.

The light from high windows in the tower was warm and bronze; the furnishings dark wood and leather and spare. The vislae were led before a man… looking almost comically like an evil wizard in picture books from the Grey, fully equipped with robes and a cape and curly Arabian shoes. Holding a scroll partly open, he acknowledged the vislae and dryly recounted the “complaint”: the woman whose pocketbook Enkidu had liberated and replaced with advertising, was, somehow, upset!

His patience at apparent triviality expended, Zerah left the office of Gerent L’Strange while he and Enkidu worked out whatever civil recompense was needed; Naranth followed. But before the two could exit the tower, minister Claret ushered them into his side office where, for their benefit, he pulled the corners of a tiny window, literally stretching the view like a magnifying glass over the park they had just passed through. Barely visible, Claret had to bring their attention to a slight discoloration of someone (or something) disguised by some sort of clearly magical adaptive camouflage, hiding behind a Cypress tree. He explained that they had had a stalker since the alehouse, who apparently was still waiting outside for them for some undiscerned purpose. Naranth and Zerah thanked him sincerely for his warning; he simply requested that, should they “handle” the interloper, they do it with sufficient discretion and distance from the Viscount’s tower.

Meanwhile, the Viscount himself, now alone with Enkidu, offered the vislae a commission. Allovox the emotion miller had been investigated by Aurora Tidal, working on the Viscount’s behalf, who had determined that Allovox was most definitely not involved with a group called the “Shadows.” L’Strange made plain that he believed Aurora’s analysis, while sound, suffered from a lack of sufficient nosiness to uncover the truth. He offered Enkidu the chance to prove his value by uncovering Allovox’s association to the Shadows… and also to earn the Viscount’s appreciation should Allovox “happen to fall down some stairs.” With a final serious admonition not to pick any pockets … at least here in Strangeglass, the Viscount sent Enkidu on his way.

Hunt the Hunter

The three vislae planned an ambush; respectful of Claret’s request and mindful of the tactical advantage of home turf, the three resolved to trap the figure in the alley outside Enkidu’s office (conveniently, where Enkidu had to change anyways). Zerah ducked into the soup kitchen run by the R’zzat clan of vespids; with some effort he managed to surreptitiously extricate himself from their eager welcomes. As their dark stalker passed into the alley, Zerah stepped back out, conjuring a golem living from the mud and Brock of the alley to trap the stalker between the three of them.

Things began to very quickly get equal parts strange and disturbing.

Shifting its gaze among the three of them in physical shifts that were as impossibly quick as they were deeply unnatural, the figure was more fully revealed as Zerah ordered his Golem to move forward and snatch the camouflaging robe from the figure’s shoulders. He almost immediately regretted this decision; under the robe was a creature of black, withered flesh, looking very much like the emaciated Dickensian spirit of Want. Its feet were bare; its obscenely long hands and fingers perpetually dripped with blood; its face had no resemblance to that of a human, with bruised flesh pulled and stretched around permanently elongated eyes and a mouth set into an eternal scream.

Once revealed, it glanced around and adopted the pose of a man who had fallen and broken his back on the edge of the building. It greeted and treated them, particularly Naranth, in admiring tones; as it did so, it cracked itself into positions of continued violence and death.

Though the vislae had never seen such a horrific sight (or, perhaps, in blissful ignorance of it, if they had), they immediately recognized its origin for what it was: a creature from the Dark outside the Suns. That was enough for Zerah, who proposed to destroy it and return it to sender. However, the others wanted to hear what it had to say for itself.

It offered them its service and, more disturbingly, its approval. It had witnessed the events of the previous evening and had reveled in the Vislae’s capacity for destruction, and most importantly…murder. It only wanted to help, it said. Zerah, still in favor of its destruction was outvoted by the others. Enkidu enjoined it to assist them in finding the one who had poisoned Naranth and to bring her to them that they might find the one who crafted and sent the toxin. Then, they insisted, it might be allowed to accompany and assist them… perhaps. It was overjoyed to be given a task and, after retrieving its robes (for which all of them were grateful), melted back into tattered invisibility and slunk away.

The High Cost of Filing

The three returned to Enkidu’s office and considered their options in retrieving the files stolen from the Charnel Heart from wherever they were, lost in the light of the Blue Sun. Enkidu proposed summoning an emissary of the Blue Sun and treating with it to assist them. However, as he prepared the summoning circle… something, again, went terribly, terribly wrong. He began to scream and scream… and scream. The other two leapt into action to save their companion. Naranth applied a chokehold to render Enkidu unconscious (and, mercifully, ending the endless screaming); Zerah then, for the second time in as many days, stepped into dreams to attempt to save a friend…

On the other side, what greeted him chilled him to his core. Enkidu’s disrupted summoning had taken him in dreams to the Blue Sun, but the Nightside of it. A glass dome sheltered (if that can be the word) them from a seething storm of nightmares that were unable to reach inside directly. Strange numbers floated in the air. Beneath his feet was a crystal floor, which turned out to be the face of a massive clock, with many hands and many numbers, all of them 13. Zerah could make out strange glyphs below them, and living creatures trapped in cells being tormented. He was brought out of this nightmare induced reverie by a screechy, squelching sound, like wet flesh dragged across glass.

A “woman” covered with enormous, sagging breasts, dragged the remains of a dismembered body. To Zerah’s horror, she pulled open her cavernous vagina and inserted the pieces of the body inside her, devouring them.

Across the wide dome, a pale azure crystal dais lay, with a massive blue throne sitting atop it. Enkidu lay upon the dais, and on the throne sat a massive figure in cobalt blue armor, from head to toe and armed with a giant hammer, who, to Zerah’s immediate horror (did that word even have meaning anymore in such a place?) recognized as Nimrigal… guardian of the Nightside of the Blue Sun… a figure he knew, if he did not precisely remember.

Nimrigal was, at that moment, adjusting his codpiece, having just visited incredibly viscious indignities on the dismembered corpse that Zerah saw previously, the sight of which had no doubt been the cause for the terrifying sound Enkidu had been making all the way in Indigo. Zerah knew better than to use the power of his spell to lay hands on this dreaming. This place was real in a very deadly way.

Instead, by calling, Zerah managed to wake Enkidu and call him forth. Nimrigal prevented him from leaving, but made the vislae an offer: if Enkidu would bring his “other friend” with him next time… he’d be appreciative. He did so very much want to meet Naranth… and then, the clock hands swirled and the two of them fell upward through the dome into the nightmare swarm that rushed forward to devour them….

And back in Enkidu’s office, as if nothing horrible had just happened in the Nightmare Palace. And with a look of pure Indigo, the two Vislae agreed to keep that between them.

Abandoning the plan of summoning assistance without a more experienced hand to guide them, the three took a moment to recover themselves and then set off to speak with Charles Ember, or was it Imbir, or was it… to speak with THEM, anyways, to hopefully shed some light on the other thread of their troubles.

Shopping

At the Strangeglass Ephemera Emporium, Naranth interacted with the Proprieters Joaquin, and found the package Charles had ordered ready to go under the names of several would-be couriers. Wrapped in twine and paper, it was large and substantial.

Curious, Naranth unwrapped the package to discover within an artifact of the Grey Sun: the bright, big type Big Blue Book of Riddles. It had fanciful illustrations, and inside a survey of the world’s famous riddles and childish jokes. It did not seem like the sort of thing one might bring on an “adventure” at all.

The Snake, the Monkey, and the Dead Princess

Enkidu does not recall the Hall of the Goetics – something probably due to his current standing in their number if not the overall loss of detail from harboring in the Grey.

They take a jipnee to the Roseate Arch which stands in the Confederacy of Cloisters, at the end of the Avenue of Suns – a great plaza where each of the suns is represented by a great tower with a glass oriflame atop it and each designed so it seems to have an aura of appropriate light. The twisting paths and cunning walkways and patterns and labyrinths in the ground all around them bore testimony to this being a place Goetic.

At the actual palace of the Goetics, topped by a great, low, green glass basilica dome, they found their destination. The dome spoke to Enkidu of secrets, of slotted whorls of place and substance that reach out into the suns. Enkidu was fairly certain that such knowledge by a person of his standing was utterly forbidden. Not to mention delicious.

The snake and the voracious monkey demon that were part of the door’s lintel interrogated them, but half-heartedly, while the snake hissed and combed palpably through strange corners of their minds. The were admitted, but not before Snake had a chance to eye them conspiratorially.

The bored aspirant at the Calling Desk heard Enkidu’s queries for something that might help them with a little trouble with the Blue Sun, a little getting of lost things.

They make their way to the Open Library of the Goetics up a great, wind of blue stairs in the Goetic Palace. They find Master Palafrey sitting in a pool of sunlight by the windows overlooking the Avenue of Suns, reading an ancient tome.

He agrees to find a way to get information on their Belladonna Bellanoire for them from the files from the grey. In exchange, after eyeing Enkidu up and down, he offers to trade that work for Enkidu’s assistance with a ritual calling forth an ancient princess from the Pale Sun – and should it work, and should she be amenable, sleeping with her.

Clearly, Enkidu agrees.

The Problem of the Thah

At Ember’s Leap, Charles awaits them behind the Thah and the protective gates.

The Thah tell the Vislae that they are only there looking for information on those who disappeared at the party, and what may have happened to them. If they cannot convince the garrulous Apostate to leave his Estate to speak with the Thah, perhaps the Vislae can gather the information for them?

The Thah seek:

Eru – reported missing by the Order of Vances

The Ambassador of the Red Sun – by some accounts…discorporated?

The Widow Threnody (who lives in a giant hive as the queen of some… unfriendly bees)

Valomir, a lacuna, and an old man going by the moniker “Wink”

Assuring the Thah they would at least try, the Vislae move through the tori gates of the estate. Charles, watching the whole conversation from the front terrace, greets them, exuberant to see them, and hopeful they are ready to head off to Czechoslovakia (which isn’t getting any closer or more pleasant, the longer they wait!). He is utterly pleased that they have the “most important supply”, and after checking the Big Blue Book of Riddles reverently, like an early bible, he urges them to put it away, and to take some food and rest, and that he would go out on the town and fetch the rest of their supplies to begin a journey the next day.

Dodging the curious Thah camped out beyond the estate’s boundaries, he headed off into the gathering evening.

The Way Begins to Open

In the garden, surveying the slowly-recovering topiary, they sit to have some repast with Imbir. They tell him that the Thah are seeking those who seem to have gone missing from he party. Imbir eyes them, stroking his long mustaches, sweat in the warm evening across his tan, bald skull. His gold robes are still as secrets.

He tells them he has realized he is finding a way out. He begins by confirming for them the state of the guests they did not already know. Val and Vink left early at his suggestion to await the Vislae down the road once things started to go awry. The Widow Threnody left the party with a man 40 years her junior (a small smile). The Red Ambassador was most definitely murdered here in the garden, in such a way that there would be absolutely no remains.

Imbir tells them in a soft voice that hides pain and a spark of hope, that something of a paradox seems to have happened to him, and he is only beginning to understand the edges of what has happened.

Zerah and Enkidu leap upon the assertion and ask whether Charles has something to do with it, and whether his obstreperous ignorance of the Actuality is involved. Imbir assents through silence.

They tell Imbir their current plight (Naranth’s poisoning, the possibility of the Charnel Heart already being after them). He considers it, and says that it sounds like a fine time to go on Charles’ adventure, which will certainly get them out of Satyrine for a few days.

The eat, they drink, and further talk is interrupted by a bell ringing in the square before the house.

When they emerge from the Leap, the sight in the square freezes them and impels them to action simultaneously. They run down the steps, taking several at a time, throwing open the gate.

Murder waits for them in the square, his dark robe rustling like lost waters around him. And Murder has a pet. An iron chain joins Murder’s waist to an old man’s neck. The old man has dark fire in his eyes. He wears only a loincloth and carries a massive butcher’s cleaver. He is spattered with blood and pale bits.

Assuming the attitude of someone begging for their life while being hacked and dismembered, Murder responds to their demands for explanation, saying he has found the bad woman who hurt Master Naranth. (The appellation sends a chill through them all.)

The Vislae demanded the spirit unchain the seething, unhinged man crouching at his feet. “But I had only just found him and set him free… as you wish….”

As the Vislae attempted to interrogate the man, who quickly lost interest in the cleaver, they found him a befuddled, sad creature who had clearly lost his wits. As they turned back to confront Murder, the old man wandered away muttering about dinner.

“Oh, he had such work left to do!” Murder purred, “and he had done such things before a sickness took him.” Shrugging, rewinding the chain about its waist as a belt (perhaps to forestall his robe being removed again), “I found him and restored him to his former self for our … work.”

The square was empty, and there was too much blood on the stones by the Thah’s dugout for comfort.

Murder told them how he had freed the man, and had followed the taint of attempted murder he had picked off Naranth to Belladonna. The two subdued her, and went to work on her, and well, the old man’s hungers were such that Murder could not deny him what he wanted after so long being lost in the Noosphere….

“But of course, I did not allow her to expire before we learned the truth: a Vislae made the poison for her, one called Allovox the Maker. Shall we go now to find him? Shall we end him this night in some ecstasy of unmaking?”

Zerah could contain himself no longer and demanded the thing be destroyed. Naranth confronted the thing, hurling invective, asking how he could kill Belladonna? Why he would do such a thing.

Its answer was the most chilling yet, “But… Master Naranth, this is what you made me for, what you called me out of the Dark to be. I only long to get the chance to participate in your holy work. To be a shadow beside you as you set yourself to glory.”

Perhaps it was the poison. Perhaps it was the lightning at work. Perhaps it was the sinking in of a terrible truth, or the glimmer of responsibility.

Naranth unleashed his lightning. Into Murder. From his arms and fingers it burst like angry eels, lashing into the dark robes of the spirit. Silent, it screamed. Although agony or ecstasy were difficult to piece apart.

The dark dreams that had haunted the skies all day swirled overhead. Like an indictment, lightning gathered like the bloodshot of a drunk’s eyes. It fell from the sky like a hammer, lifting Naranth from the ground, illuminating him in glory and terror.

The Sky and the Land of the truth were, for a long moment, joined. And then, all that power arced into Murder, whose name had been Dolor. The spirit of the Dark was lit from within by unfathomable power. Its eyes burned with the voice of the heavens and the earth, as Naranth’s did in terrible echo.

Their voices were a wail and a victory combining, a suffering and a longed-for release.

It was Murder that broke before Naranth. The spirit fell, and its shadow fell to the cobblestones beside it.

Smoking, Naranth fell to the cobbles a moment later. The sky cleared, no tatters of the disturbing dreams remained.

Shaking, breaking, trembling, falling, they rose together: Murder, and the new Murder Naranth had made with all his power, trying to erase his past.

Aghast, the 2 waking Vislae prayed they were asleep, and the Dark Blue had somehow still a hold of them.

It was not in the realm of Nimragal where the 2 Dark spirits paused in the attitude of the hanged at the edge of the square before Ember’s Leap.

Aghast, the Vislae watched them go….

Endings

It was as they dragged Naranth onto the terrace of Ember’s Leap, that he woke, the knowledge of what had happened, of what he’d done, alive in his eyes. “I…” and perhaps “can’t…” he whispered, as he faded out in a downswirl of grey light into the surcease of the Grey Sun.

Enkidu, with questionable kindness, went out and let the old, bloodied murderer whose name and home they did not know, into the patisserie he seemed to think was his home.

“Come inside,” called Imbir from the candle light of the hall. “Come inside now, and we will have a drink and you can … restore yourselves….”

Leaving Aunt Crystal’s house, it turned out that Zerah’s damage to himself with his Ambulatory Bloodfire Oath was more severe than anticipated. Getting him back inside her house was only slightly more awful than the process of disentangling Naranth from Aunt Crystal’s moth “clothing” after their queen had laid eggs in his clothing… his … sensitive … clothing.

At the edge of Aunt Crystal’s property, Naranth ripped off the blouse Aunt Crystal had insisted he wear, and re-donned his battle coat, ready to go, glancing desolutely back at Aunt Crystal’s gothic home.

Naranth and Enkidu made their way out of Aunt Crystal’s property in the Palindrome: and of course, the way out is not the way in, but the other way, the way through, is the same.

They encountered the singular Church of the Legacy which sits in the center of the Palindrome, amid the concentration of roads. It was a sight Enkidu knew well though he did not precisely recall it.

Dark cut granite bricks defined its structure.

Today (as there were many other days), there was an angel – pale skinned, long-dark-haired – standing before the door, weeping. This day, this angel seemed masculine from the strength of form, and was holding a sandstone sphinx in his hands as he wept. His tears turned to crystal as they fell to gather in the dirt at his feet.

The Vislae spoke with the angel, who seemed to take from their dialogue some bit of insight as “hope among the fissures”. In gratitude, he told the Goetic his name and offered counsel if called. He gave the Sphinx into Enkidu’s hands; almost immediately, time claimed the Sphinx, blunting its features, taking its form: from sand to sand, so that as the angel took flight and claimed a pale sunbeam out of the Indigo, the sphinx was only sand being pocketed quietly by the Vislae.

The Vislae made their echoing path of willow-bound ways out of the Palindrome.

RAILS AND FISH

Indigo Rail would take the Vislae several…interesting places that day.

Quiet Lake, and Naranth’s contact, knows as “the Fisherman” ‘started’ their evening in a Celtic fashion.

At the rail platform, the mailbox hailed Enkidu by name with a fiery, folded-paper message that eventually expanded itself into a messenger-class projection of an entity working in the Red Embassy by the name of Igriminch. Lamenting the discorporation of the Red Ambassador, Beleremsiphon, the Corrosion Branch functionary negotiated in folded paper form for help from Enkidu – because of past association – on finding out who did the deed. The Thah and the Goetic Guild had both been astoundingly unhelpful. Would Enkidu look into it!? There was a certain Thah captain who might be sympathetic….

Out in a protected floating fisherman’s shack smelling of scales and time at the edge of the Quiet Lake’s marshes, they spend some time looking for information from the Fisherman, as he processes the idea of the freedom of swimming from concrete fish form into the feeling of swimming free.

From the Fisherman they learn that the Charnel Heart is based…well, perhaps no one knows that, but they have a business front in the Underside of the Confederacy of Cloisters; on the other side of the Middle Night Market, it is cleverly disguised as a whorehouse.

The look of the fisherman at Enkidu regarding the Charnel Heart is as salty as the fish he serves on his porch, charred in pot brandy.

DARKMOON MANOR: SMOKE AND ASHES

They got to Darkmoon Manor via a Jeepnee pulled by an Elderbrin in the shape of a horseman and an aspiring young gladiator in a traditional training thong.

They found Darkmoon manor via the sight and smell of smoke.

The manor in ruins, only heavy concrete support stanchions standing, dread walked onto the Darkmoon grounds with them.

Two neighbors followed as they made their way onto the hot grounds. One was distraught, with the older one wearing the face of mourning but the appetite of a vulture that feeds on tragedy. They found out the basic and unhelpful details.

An Enkidu-summoned creature found 2 sets of remains: a woman in a bathtub, and a man, disintegrated into a practice circle. Sorcery, powerful sorcery was the end of the man and the house, and has attracted the woeful weeping willow from the property beside the manor…

IMBIR’s EMBERS

In the afternoon light, they found Ember’s Leap glowing in the golden light. Soul arches mark the entrances and peaks of the property, set back from a huge and largely empty roundabout in northern Brickstown’s prosperous Hill District.

A brace of Thah were camped out across the square, seeking entry into the property to speak with the owner.

Having conquered the outer gate by opening it (unopposed), the Vislae proceeded within where they found Sir Charles Ember. Not Lord Imbir of Satyrine… Sir Charles of the Grey.

He chatted with them about cleaning up after the party. He chatted with them about preparing for the next adventure, based on their friend Eru’s “advance work”. He told them of a special resource they had reserved at an Emporium in Strangeglass called The Big Book of Riddles.

Enkidu pushed his way past the staid Sir Charles Ember, into the quasi-ruin of Ember’s Leap. There was evidence of magical combat – contained – and the exertion of power inside the sprawl of the red and teal mansion.

In the topiary garden, among the random cuts of vegetation, and the ashtrays, Enkidu found the host. Found Lord Imbir of Ember’s Leap.

Imbir spoke to Enkidu from the shadows of the needs of the house, of the cleanup of the house from the ‘exceptional events’ that transpired… of the needs of Charles Ember….

The two seemed aware, but slipperily, of one another….

CONFEDERATION OF MADNESS

Off to the Confederation of Cloisters in Endkidu’s growling transport. Across from a Chapter House of the Sisters of Silent Contemplation is a difficult-to-see ramp behind a storehouse that leads down into the earth. Smooth as worm-ground earth, the stone ramp descends by slow turns into firelight and the underneath of faith.

Dancing and music and fire and incense and singing and coupling and athletic demonstrations crowded in on them as they entered the Undersling, as though all the equanimity of the Confederation had to be paid for, or ran off, like fat from a bad oven bake.

The red lantern public house was a popular one, with ladies and a few men that were self-possessed and active in their cultivation of clients. The madame was a ginger dwarf woman, curious about her (revealed) Vislae client.

Enkidu went to her office where he asked her directly about the hiring of the assassin who attacked and revealed herself to Naranth. The madame decried all knowledge of such a person, and offered official Charnel policy that never reveals workers’ identities.

Enkidu and Naranth arranged to make a distraction that would allow Enkidu to steal the dwarf whore’s files.

Naranth, with the Excession curse in full effect called thunder and lightning through the Red Lantern of the Heart. The iron-reinforced oak door was a perfect conductor for the Lighting of Infinity. It blasted backward with the energy of the blast, through the whores and johns in the welcome room, through the back rooms, and into the metal back door, sparking massive fires into the building.

Amid the screams and the blossoming ruby gleam of young fire, Enkidu bypassed the bleeding and the dying into the whorehouse’s management room, Enkidu used his magic to offer the whore’s filing cabinet to the dreams of the Blue Sun. He then faded into the horrified crowds of the UnderMarket battling the burning of the Red Market building.

On the ramp, they found each other amid the wailing and the wounded.

The cab waited for them in the quiet night of the Confederation like an accusation of the transport of magic.

Power had its reign that day, and the Vislae packed their goods and their wounds and exhaustion together as they raced toward the Abstraction.

]]>http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/chapter-3-angels-weep/feed/02394Chapter 2: The Abiding Cursehttp://rpg.simplecommunion.com/the-abiding-curse/
http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/the-abiding-curse/#commentsSun, 07 Oct 2018 17:33:16 +0000http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/?p=2388Read More]]>As the vislae agonized, the quiet, percussive sounds of nighttime gradually provided accompaniment. The chirping of insects harmonized with other less identifiable Satyrine strangeness in an almost hypnotic, rhythmic beat, which in turn was slowly overpowered by a dull roar of rushing air and fierce steam. The beat persisted in the form of a harsh metallic background staccato: metal on metal thumping like a drum…

And then the night itself was gone into daylight like a conjurer’s trick, flooding the… train that Enkidu and Zerah were now riding. The conductor called out a final stop of the Cemetery of Dead Roads line of Indigo Rail in Strangeglass, transitioning to Satyrine Rail.

Zerah awoke: to see himself, seated before him. He knew he was dreaming, but lucid, and not having an uncommon out of body experience at all. He attempted to piece together the missing memories that led him here, something often easier to do without a body: a glance at a discarded Indigo Gazetteer alerted him to the fact that a full day and a half had passed since the evening’s events before Ember’s Leap and that this was now the morning after the morning after. He noted Enkidu across the train in another car, but before he could reach out to his companion, the other vislae, unable to see him, departed the train.

Enkidu’s personal cambionette slid smoothly up to the station ramp to fetch him: a black and yellow rounded Stude-like, a design that had echoed into the Gray Sun as ‘1920’s’. It slid away toward the looming edge of the Abstraction, ferrying him clanking and complaining to his home….

When he cautiously unlocked his small den in the great dark brick fortress of his home, he was greeted by the scent of Earl Grey tea and honey oats. It did not take him long to intuit that the house was… annoyed with its owner(?)’s absence, but pleased by something else. Enkidu mechanically filed a report on the Ember’s Leap events and had barely slid it under the door to the office before it was sucked in impatiently. Without a moment’s pause, a postcard was spat back out, hitting Enkidu squarely in the chest.

Enkidu lit up a Red cigar, quickly filling the room with the aroma of brimstone, as he sat down to scan the card. The front featured three squids toasting the viewer with the exuberant text, “Wish you were here!” written above them. On the back, in pen, the message read:

“Sorry to have missed you at the party. Was really looking forward to seeing you again. Find me at the Boarbeak Drew. – Valomeer”

Writing New Nightmares

Zerah made his way back to The Reinvention the long edge of morning: on foot. Taking his ingress through the Star’s Birth Arena, he descended into the lower levels before stopping short at the sound of a heated (on one side, in any case) discussion:

Inferno, the fearsome gladiator and soon-to-be former champion, snorted in impatient contempt at Odysseus, the blind trainer. The much larger, monstrous figure turned away with a parting offer: “Look me up when you’re not too much of a pussy to let me solve the problem.” He scarcely deemed Zerah worthy of a scornful glance as he passed by.

Impassive, blind Odysseus seemed almost to be waiting for Zerah as the vislae rounded the corner to greet him. The two shared greetings before Odysseus confided that Naranth had returned the last night, but that his arrival had coincided with certain… abnormalities. Dangerous abnormalities. The hall to Naranth’s cell was barricaded as if against a siege with gathered furniture, racks, and unused tools and weapons. Understanding that his recent companion was likely still in great danger (and clearly an unwitting source of danger as well), Zerah cautiously moved forward.

He made his way between the racks and mattresses, noting the long scratchings and burn marks on the walls and ceiling. Invoking a kind of Blue Tape Worm he held in in his soul, Zerah worked a Dream Intrusion, slithering into Naranth’s fringes of the Blue Sun….

Disoriented, he stumbled into a grey office full of grey furniture, with an unfriendly rubber tree filling one corner and reaching out into the room, like the shadow of dark times to come.

He moved across the office to a brass plaque where a door slightly ajar emitted a disturbing murmur or siren or scream. Zerah ran his fingers across the letters of the plaque… Michal Wojnicz… his own name in the cocoon of lies that are the Gray Sun. The door slid quietly open, and the first thing he saw was himself (too many times in one day for this sort of thing; a second self-encounter was ill-omened).

He was withered, with his mouth open in a silent wail. In partial profile, he saw a version of Naranth but weatherbeaten and poorly kempt, and showing many small injuries. The patter of his tale was still battering Dream-Wojnicz, his nightmares draining the life from the false image of the Apostate. Meanwhile, the shadows of nightmares crawled away under the desk, and through the windowsill, and out of the angles of the door.

Zerah reached out his hands and grasped the firmament of the dream, intent on turning the space itself out of the illusion, of waking Naranth back into the Indigo Sun. Like a bullfighter, he leaned into the momentum of the dream in an effort to escape the gravity of the Gray around it; with one hand, he pulled himself into the space where the false Wojnicz stood, and with the other he grasped the corners of the room to draw back the curtains of the illusion. Though he had never met Naranth in the Gray, he could feel his memories of shadow shifting and breaking and reforming against the waves of the Actuality.

But the dream, the nightmare, or Naranth, fought back. Zerah lost his grip, and the Gray began turning the turner deeper into itself, drawing him toward the mummified body with the mummy as the man and the sorcerer as the shadow. He felt himself sliding away. He called out, reaching out to Naranth in a reversed position of helplessness. Naranth, through bloodshot eyes, saw Zerah, shocked, and reached back…

Slumming it in Luxury

The Boarbeak Drew was in the “classic, populist style”: Green lawn, big windows, charming sign. Barback with a bad non-posh accent. The sort of place the gentry would boast in tittering whispers of having “slummed” in, which in turn might bring in the ambitious sort of upward climber trying to scratch off a little prestige in the rubbing of shoulders. In other words, it was exactly the kind of place where Enkidu might find new clients.

Outside the pub, Enkidu was surprised by the glass-bound apparition of a statuesque, broad-shouldered Viking of a woman who spoke with a voice as familiar as her image was not. Zerah’s voice came forth from her open lips, updating him on Naranth’s return and requesting a meeting once more at Zero’s Bar.

With practiced reserve, Enkidu absorbed the message and continued with his business inside.

Ordering a shepherd’s pie (as frustratingly delicious as it was inauthentic) and a stout, he settled in, patiently hoping to suss out his pen-pal contact. He amused himself by picking the pockets of a bad-tempered, “genteel” lady throwing an entitled fit. Perhaps daring fate in a moment of pique, he left his own business card in her purse, in place of her own. Perhaps Philippina Galás would pay him a visit?

Eventually, Enkidu’s attention narrowed to the snooker table in the adjoining room, where a lacuna was busy hustling and complaining to “Vink,” an old man who barely communicated in response as he doggedly attempted to “complete” a jigsaw puzzle of The Alone, even if his determined and unorthodox methods promised a different outcome than the box. The lacuna’s transparent, portal-like body outlined a distant sandy beach, a disorienting display as the view perspective defiantly remained unchanging, even as the outline shifted with his movements.

After some guarded back-and-forth, the lacuna confirmed his identity as Valomeer, the postcard writer, and asked Enkidu why he hadn’t shown up at Imbir’s party. Enkidu briefly explained the curse they had discovered that evening. Unfortunately, Val had little information to offer as he “wasn’t there when things went sideways.” Apparently Imbir had sensed something was wrong and had sent him outside to look for Enkidu’s group. After that, chaos had ensued. Val’s details were vague but ominous: there was fighting in the room he had left… someone had fallen into the river… Invillino’ar , the envoy of the Red Sun (whose presence at the party alone was a strangeness worth noting), was somehow discorporated…

Lastly, and most unsettling, Val offered his opinion that after the events of the evening, that Imbir was not his usual self. The lord had asked Val to go home “for his own safety,” a suggestion that struck him as odd in both manner and word.

Before parting ways, Val offered Enkidu a final gift, a lead on a job “working for the wrong side.”

Apparently a Thah captain by name of Aclanix was very keen on talking to Imbir, who now doesn’t seem to be talking to anyone after the incident. However, as Val noted, “he’d talk to you…”

Meetings Fateful

After making sure Naranth was safe and collected (and having briefly updated him on the last night he remembered), Zerah visited the Valkyrie’s shop. He paid a fair price for a sending to Enkidu, asking the other vislae to meet him and Naranth at Zero’s. The Valkyrie also gave him a lead on where to procure a magical item that might make such communications easier in the future.

Zerah dutifully followed the directions given him by the Valkyrie, even as they took him farther and farther from the more traveled and elaborate vendors of the glittering bazaar. He had nearly missed it entirely before he noticed the sign of the “fortune teller” the Valkyrie had warned him about. Across the street was a barely noticeable ramshackle hut, standing alone. As he drew near, a waft of strong amber floated out from the dark interior to greet him.

Inside was a peculiar sight, even for Satyrine. A girl of about 18 with milk white skin and raven hair, sat at a spinning wheel, spinning her own beautiful hair into thread. Her arms were adorned with silver bracelets of elaborate and varied designs and styles, packed so closely together, they resembled a bracer; her right hand was adorned with many silver rings. Her eyes were so blue and pale, they appeared violet in the low light inside the hut. She scarcely acknowledged Zerah as he entered, occupied as she was in her work.

To the right, another woman, middle-aged with a round face and apple cheeks, sat in a chair before a crystal ball. She wore a peasant’s dress, and her hair was done up in a utilitarian double bun. Across from her a tall man seated on an ottoman held out his hands, his skin the sheen and consistency of whalebone. He wore a tungsten black skullcap upon his bald head and a black fur cloak fell weightily over his shoulders. His arms, bared to the elbow, were covered with dozens of cuts.

Zerah almost immediately recognized the man, even though his face was turned away: Dilliger Quine, the man who had mentored him as a Vance; also the man who had been responsible for his expulsion from the Order.

When the woman looked up at Zerah, Dilliger turned around, and the cuts covering his body opened, every one, into a searching eye, focused on the newcomer. The exchange between them was terse, but cordial. Dilliger, on his way out the door, brought forth an image of one of the Secret Souls, chilling Zerah to the core. But instead of threat, Dilliger offer Zerah with mixed pathos, his assistance, if he should ever need it, and told him to find him at the Desideratum, where he was now stationed.

Once the tall spectre of the past had left, Zerah consulted with the middle-aged woman. She gave her name as Verdani, which Zerah recognized as meaning “That Which Is Coming Into Being.” In the corner of the room, the third, the oldest, was named Urd (“What Was”) and the youngest, still spinning her hair, was named Skuld (“What Will Be”). Zerah eventually came to what had brought him here: a hope to find some magical item that might allow communication when his companions were separated. To his great surprise, she had already prepared this exact boon for him, three gobstopper candies, wrapped in a linen bag, paid for in advance… by the now absent Dilliger Quine.

Greetings from the Charnel Heart

As the Star’s Birth Arena crowd cheered in violent anticipatory ecstasy, Naranth bent down to pick up the rose thrown by Rota, his Weaver friend, unmistakable in the throng by the absurdly broad-brimmed hat she wore. He attached it to his battle-worn trousers by the thorns, on the opposite side of the rose he already wore from the lady who kept his heart.

He did not expect a serious challenge in the arena that day, but today’s challenger was an unknown. The announcer’s booming voice heralded “Belladonna Bellanoir” a lithe female fighter equipped with blades and whatever else beneath her vampish costume.

Between them ran darkly streaked streets of pale granite, hugged by darkly shaded buildings and walls in an urban chiaroscuro.

The fight was intense, but brief. Porting in behind her and avoiding Belladonna’s initial smoke bomb gambit, Naranth whispered dark, unwelcome secrets to his opponent as he connected with his fists, literally terrifying with the nightmares he magically imparted from his own wretched memories.

She surrendered after several impressive blows, but as he reached down afterwards to graciously offer her a hand, she betrayed his courtesy and drew blood with a pricking ring, hissing, “Greetings from the Charnel Heart.”

Naranth tried to hold on to her, but she escaped his clasp as he lost consciousness. Some time later, he awoke in one of the VIP booths of the arena, Rota and his old friend and announcer of the arena, Riley Tarn, standing over him. Through their efforts they had managed to stop the poison from killing him outright, but it clearly had yet to run its course, as blue veins streaked up his arms, blurring Naranth’s many tattoos as they crossed them. Attempts to discern the poison’s exact nature only led to shocking collateral damage as Naranth discovered that his magic had increased in potency at the cost of control.

Having had enough of the arena for the day, Naranth left to meet with his companions at Zero’s Bar as they had planned earlier.

That Which Is Family Is Not Always Familiar

The meeting at Zero’s Bar was brief. Each of the Circle offered what little insight they could. Enkidu relayed what he had heard from Valomeer. Naranth witnessed a waking vision of an armored man in a tiara and burnished armor turning to dust. Zerah filled in details in the abbreviated story of what had happened to the group on their travel to Ember’s Leap.

After conferring, they agreed that they should make seeing Imbir a priority, but Zerah was most concerned that the curse he had seen written on the angel was still upon them. They decided to see a “reputable witch.” Given the choice between consulting with the Vances or visiting Enkidu’s aunt, who herself was a practitioner, Zerah vetoed the Vances on the grounds of his difficult history with them.

… The first indicator that this visit would be strange even by Satyrine standards was when the door knocker barked instead of knocking with each rap on the door. They were granted entry and a welcoming voice urged them to make themselves comfortable. Large, friendly animals came bounding into the living room, shaped oddly in ways and for reasons that eventually became apparent: they were the happy furniture. Zerah settled comfortably into a fluffy chair of angora rabbit, his feet propped up on a dachshund footstool. Enkidu resignedly partook of and recommended the animated cookies that seemed just a little… too eager to be eaten (though they were, in fact, delicious). Naranth… for the most part, tried not to touch anything or lose his lunch to the surrounding strangeness.

Aunt Crystal herself turned out to be a cloud of cicadas and moths, gathered together into a humanoid shape. Despite her bizarre and unsettling appearance, she was happy to have guests and willing to help. Bringing out a large serving tray of strange liquids, she produced before them a potent concoction. The taste was FOUL to an almost unbearable degree, and it had… side effects, but it showed Zerah and Enkidu to be clear of any lingering curse.

Naranth on the other hand… his veins turned blue, and the shadowy image of a tree marked his tongue. Aunt Crystal, after some study and divination, told them what she could: the curse would almost certainly kill Naranth in time, if the branches of the tree-like blue veins reached his heart. However, the curse could be undone if they killed the maker of the poison first. Though it was doubtful that the assassin that had inflicted Naranth was also the maker, they knew that she was their first and only lead.

Zerah took the opportunity to step forward and utter an incantation of lasting power calling forth a terrible test of his intent and will. Though he did not remember their shared history, he knew that their future destinies were yet intertwined: he pledged to protect the reunited Circle: Enkidu, Naranth, Reln, and Eru. His blood turned to literal fire, glowing within his veins. He cried out in terrible anguish… and then passed out.

TL; DR Highlights

Enkidu and Zerah awake on a train, a full day and a half after the evening they traveled towards Ember’s Leap

Enkidu goes home; is contacted by Valmir, a lacuna associate from before

Zerah heads home; finds out from Odysseus that Naranth has returned, but it still asleep and a physical source of wild magic and danger; Zerah enters dreams and helps bring Naranth fully back into Actuality

Enkidu heads to the faux-lower-class-pub, the Boarbeak Drew; he lifts the goods of Philistine Galás, leaving his card with her

Enkidu meets Valmir at the Boarbeak Drew, finds out that Ember has not been acting himself and receives a lead on a job: getting an audience for a Thah captain who wishes to speak to Ember, who hasn’t spoken to anyone else since the night

Zerah encounters his old mentor and the man responsible for his expulsion from the Order of Vances Dilliger Quine at the home of three curious women; Dilliger cryptically offers his assistance and has paid for a helpful magical item days in advance of Zerah’s need of it

Naranth duels an unscheduled newcomer “Belladonna Bellanoir” in the arena; he defeats her, but as she surrenders, she poisons him and gives him “greetings from the Charnel Heart”

Naranth awakes, alive, with the aid of Riley Tarn, his friend and arena announcer, and Rota, his Weaver teacher; the poison has turned the veins in his arms blue, blurred his tattoos where the veins cross them, and has strengthened but made his magic more difficult to control

The three meet at Zero’s and decide to find a witch to find out more about the curse Zerah and Enkidu (and Reln, not present) were afflicted with, as well as to find out more about Naranth’s affliction; Enkidu suggests his Aunt Crystal

The three meet Aunt Crystal, who establishes that the curse will eventually kill Naranth, and that it feeds off his magic; the more he uses magic, the faster it will kill him, but he will also be stronger

Zerah, using a powerful, but painful and terrifying incantation that lights his own veins on fire, pledges his resolve to the Circle and to aiding his new (and old) companions

]]>http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/the-abiding-curse/feed/12388Ah… Satyrinehttp://rpg.simplecommunion.com/before-the-party/
http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/before-the-party/#respondSun, 02 Sep 2018 23:33:34 +0000http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/?p=2379Read More]]>Thriving and ever-changing, Satyrine easily accommodated four new arrivals within its walls; however, the entangling and radiating influence of their histories and current machinations could already be felt in the neighborhoods where each made his berth. Whether great or terrible (or both), the full impacts of their destinies remained to be seen…

It was no surprise that they had been noticed by their single shared point of contact: Imbir, or Lord Ember, as they had known him in the Gray. It was equally of no surprise that the first missive they received from him since arriving in Satyrine was a cryptic invitation to some elaborate social gathering at Ember’s Leap, where he made his home.

Not coincidentally, it was accompanied by another, even more cryptic invitation to Zero’s Bar in the elite Marquis District. The messages were delivered by ravens, either well-trained or aided by effective magics; despite the inherent difficulty in reaching Enkidu and Zerah’s homes, the ravens succeeded in their mission (though those ravens themselves seemed to have paid a steep price for their success…).

Zero Aggregate

Clothed in their finest garb (with a little “assistance” by Darkmoon in finding “appropriate” formal wear for Naranth for the occasion), the four each made their way to Zero’s Bar, where they were greeted by Eru, a beautiful, pale, youthful-looking woman clothed in lavender iridescent (and impressively animated) scales. Apparently mute, she communicated with gestures and magical smoke (with the audible pop of an uncorking champagne bottle); eventually Darkmoon used his own powers to quickly (and temporarily) master sign language, which allowed him to more easily facilitate the conversation.

She greeted them enthusiastically, but was disappointed to find that they did not remember her… or each other, except for Naranth and Darkmoon, who had met since returning, and Enkidu and Zerah, who had known each other in the Gray. The conversation shifted from one of initial celebration to puzzlement and rather sober thought as they tried to fit the pieces they had together, to limited success.

Taking a break, Naranth moved out into the blow of Zero’s Adventurine dance floor. As if to emphasize the foreboding confounding of expectations, magic fluxed in the nightclub, and Naranth stopped mid-giration to turn slowly as if pursuing the strangest sound, and dissolved back into the Gray.

A silence descended on the table. Something went into, or out of each of them, as the Grey reached out to touch their hearts, to stroke their fond memories of forgetfulness.

Zerah in particular, left with a visceral sense of misgiving regarding Eru’s wellbeing and the following evening’s party.

How did Eru know them? What was coming at Imbir’s party? Were there any unexpected hiccups on the road ahead? Who knew?

Bricktown Slowdown

Evening descended, and its carriage was black, and emblazoned. Because of course it was. It was driven by a servant of the Darkmoon family distilled of disgruntle.

The road – perhaps unsurprisingly – into the that part of Brickstown was slow and stodgy and blocked of the evening as far back as they could see.

Eventually, late, late, terribly late, they came to the bend of the issue. The river road blocked by construction. A group in saffron robes bearing butter yellow torches were laying new bricks. They were humming and moving together in a most… unnatural way.

Zerah’s impatience got the best of him; in prodding them for an explanation, he found himself subject to a powerful attack that bested his surprised mental reserves. Wordlessly, he gave up party and company and intent, and turned to the vital work of bricklaying.

Darkmoon sprang into action, reaching into his nature to lend the Apostate some of his own sense of separation…family, home, time, self….

Zerah returned to them dripping insight: the construction work was being conducted by cultists of the Sodality of Vrin, on a mission from the Gold Sun here in Satyrine. They were repaving the road to literally imbue it with the degradation of greed and capitalism.

The Vislae touched boot to road, abandoning the black appurtenance of Darkmoon.

One wondered, at the back of the mind, whether there might be some power putting obstacles in their path… or perhaps, keeping them from obstacles in their path, as the next bump in the road was not mortal like the cultists, but a part of the Legacy of Creation.

The Legacy

This fragment of the Legacy was an angel, kneeling in the road like a hurting child, whispering and whimpering at the brick and concrete, the cloud of its shadowed wings a testament to the tarnishing of all things that leave the Silver Sun.

In the distance, underlit by the festivities of Ember’s Leap, they saw one of Eru’s pictorgrams, saying to the sky PHYSICAL DANGER.

Moved, they paused in their Leap to approach cautiously and with helpful intent. The genderless being, with scars on its hands and face, looked up at them, and lashed out at Zerah in the lead. The weak attack was easily fended aside. And in the motion, the Apostate caught site of 3 words branded on the pinions beneath the wings, and they were:HATEDECEITTRIPLE

Zerah scoured the angel with a searching magical probe, and the pitiful creature moaned out that the angel saw them accursed of “the extinguishment of embers.”

Enkidu pulled at the Current of Origin, at the fabric of the Silver Sun which is the birth of all things, severing the binding to painful truths that held the angel with the power of the Shadow of Satyrine.

Inferring that they themselves potentially represented a grave threat to the House of Embers and Imbir himself, and that further travel might bring this curse to fruition, they decided to linger behind and send a warning ahead.

Crafting a message together, Darkmoon sent the following missive to Imbir and awaited a response:
“Cursed. Goal: “extinguishment of embers.” Too dangerous to come. Eru also possibly cursed. Has sent warning. “Danger.” Ensure her/your safety. Zerah, Enkidu.” – Darkmoon

Abiding sometimes is motion

As they contemplated their position on the road, the last surgings of Enkidu’s banishment rolling around them, magic fluxed…

They awoke, locked in a hay barn, its broad doors sealed with the sigil of the Deathless Triumvirate. With raw sortilege, they forced their way out… through a hay-chute that was not secured against exit.

They were in a field in another part of the city, near the lake. The straw clung to them, as though they had been encased in it….

Frustrated again by the lack of insight into their situation, Zerah used sortilege once more to reach into the future, to steal insight into the paths laying before them. His shadows multiplied even as his body faded into shadowy stillness. The shadows fell into the darkness of Saytrine, into its shadows of hard truth. Unsettling scurrying came to them, as of rats carrying his shadows away underground. As Zerah struggled to regain his senses, two of his shadows swelled back out of the earth, a terrible energy upon them.

The Vislae made quick work of one of the apparitions, and Darkmoon produced a black and curled Wicked Key, unlocking the future in order to undo the past.

They found or imagined themselves waiting back on the road; awakening again, as if from a dream, where the events of the barn and the field were a lucid dream (worth cash in Satyrine!).

A response came to them from Imbir, but it was confused and unhelpful, though it did confirm his well-being and presence at Ember’s Leap. As they read the last of Imbir’s words, clouds parted nearby, and magic fluxed in the indigo heavens of Satyrine overhead.

Again, they found themselves awakening… this time on a train, with brick dust in their pockets and on their brows. The train was from the furthest of Satyrine’s districts, a place of lost roads. They were sliding into the city, which was indigo with dawn light.

You eke a stuttering return out of a broken nightmare forest. As you were not fit for Shambhala, as your presence was not condign to to the mitigations of Heaven, you too were pushed down and away from the Redemption of the one who suffered beneath the Eyes.

The path back is a bridge between pain and difference.

Light separates.

It illuminates powers and people and what keeps them apart.

The darkness draws in all things: faces and forms, the past and the present combining….

Waking comes unwelcome. Blood in the mouth, ache deeper than the flesh, scratch of straw. The spirit enervated by too many long days. Waking is not reward, waking is reaching the top of the hill of broken glass only to realize you also need to descend.

But nothing stays the same, nothing that lives. Even this experience is challenged.

Warm is the defining characteristic of the place. Palettes against tight walls under small shutters. A rusted stove spewing heat like a fever dream of reigniting the sun. Coffee steams in an old pan like the breath of Quan Yin who heals all wounds.

Phoebus sees you put your bodies back on not entirely happily. He is in a different state: stripped to the waist, his skin caked with lines of bitter yellow mud that Windrider salved on to cover the weals and weeping self-inflictions. In spite of that, he moves easy, setting out mugs of coffee and pea/oat gruel too young to be good, but warm enough to bring life to the self.

The man you saved offers to shave Father Massey with the bowl and blade he had clearly used to empty his own face and reduce his hair to an iron fuzz across purpled scars of a worried scalp. His eyes have a luminosity, a sort of infinite grey that catches the small light of the room and clings to it as if starved.

For some amount of time, Phoebus is the only human being in the room.

A handful of times, he stops, looking at the two of you with self-knowledge in his face. He makes a quiet, and disturbingly familiar drawl – just “Thank you.” He feels what he has been saved from. Even with the peace steaming off him, even with your dislocation from yourselves, it is clear that something was wrong with Phoebus Evans, and there is a reason he doesn’t come calling to town.

He nods to himself once you have words and motion and have done for yourself what needs doing – the bandaging of a hand, a shave, a wash, exchanging overalls for a ruined suit.

He sees you want to understand what happened. You see that he knows the story, but does not himself understand even though he knows all the parts. As if it were something expected, like a form of ‘hello’, he rubs the canyon of scar in his scalp.

He begins there, “I was a youngin, and didn’t listen to my daddy when I shoulda. I wanted to ride and it were winter and cold and I weren’t supposed to go insa barn,” he smiles a child’s regretful smile, which brightens into light, “Her name was Mazey – least that’s what I called her, on account of she was most the color of savage corn, so dark she was. I loved her.”

Proudly, and less self-conscious, he races on, “I saddled her. I did it right,” and the details unfold, “I cinched. She tried a couple horsey thing, but I cottoned em, and we both laughed. We went out, the sky was high and grey and the world was white and beautiful. Her steps were a high-born lady’s. Her run was…godly.” He looks away into the past with lustrous intensity, the opposite of the cold burning eyes that had almost found them in his woods.

“Of course when I got back, daddy had to punish me. Can’t be taking out them horses in the winter, not at my age, and one of the stallions kicked up a fit he couldn’t follow Mazey,” a squirm of discomfort, a pause. He licks his lips.

“Daddy really got the point across. Then there was a little … accident,” and they heard the boy’s screams across the years, and something breaking, and men yelling. “I was sick after, and had lots of bad dreams, and only Mazey would find me in ’em, and bring me back.”

He catches himself worrying at his head and drops his hand like a man who’d been hit many times for doing just that. He nods, as if he has found the right thing, “The summer next, I got back to work. I growed fast. I stopped readin’ with Will, and took up with the negro groomsman, a man we call Jacob.”

You know that Jacob was hanged back at the stables, that you cut him down.

Phoebus rambles about horses. Most of them are dead and gone now… their proud descendants, or those ones’ proud descendants would be the ones whose empty stalls you saw in the barn.

The Savages came. First to trade, then to help with the animals, to oversee some of the sheep, to offer new ways to work with the pigs. To give medicine and tobacco. They didn’t come back one year. The year after, Phoebus made new friends. Windrider would call them No Medicine Dakota, his Lost People.

Things had gotten different then. Daddy fell ill. The Na-ko-tah, as they sometimes called themselves, well they gave him every secret remedy to help – after that white doctor kept coming up empty-handed. Phoebus gave his daddy every cure, said every little prayer. But he died.

There was no self-knowledge in Phoebus’ eyes that he killed his father with poisons and perhaps with curses. You didn’t say anything.

There was an older negro who worked with the widow, Mrs. Evans in the house. He went by some crazy foreign name, but they called him Dolls, because he saved the orchard out back, and he loved to make little carvings out of the apples, and out of the sweet ripe corn leaves and give them as gifts.

In Phoebus words, in his mind, you see the shine on the ‘house negro’: a strange shine of his own country across the sea. You tease out that Dolls couldn’t see the wickedness that came, but he felt it, and he did what he could. But what effication has green corn against What Withers the Stalks?

There was a senior field hand with big dreams that Phoebus loved to hear spin his tales at night about the stars and the world outside Wyoming, and how he was going to go and meet Queen Kalipha who he’d read about in Spanish, and marry her, and become King of California. He was called Mouth. He had big dreams, this negro, and the Savages were going to help him achieve it. He was a small man, not strong, but quick, and with a big head to hold all those dreams.

You know you have stopped this man’s mouth, that you ended whatever options there would have been for him to marry an imaginary queen. You know he learned too much about no medicine, and about the failing of the West.

Phoebus tells you how there was a new mining opportunity. Not for him, but for the hands. There’s a strange shine in Phoebus’ eyes like the fever for gold and the fear of it all the same. There was gold. Well, not gold, but something better than gold down in the ground out there. The men started going. They brought back little things. There was a bunch of little trinkets buried in the ground. They burned ’em mostly, and whooped it up. The men had their wild times. The men got sick. The men didn’t have the medicines his daddy had. The men died.

They got more men. The men on the farm had some arguments. Some of them had to get ended once and for all. The Widow Mrs. Evans had to stay in her room on account of hysteria. Things got a little better. The apple trees died. Things got worse.

There weren’t much to do on account of the animals all going to the mines. Or dying. Or needing to be et cuz the crops all died in the field.

Oh, did Phoebus pray, and that’s when the angel came more clear to him, told him how he could make things better. How he’d been bad, how he needed to be punished, since his Daddy weren’t around no more. He took it up. Things changed. They were gonna be rich soon, he’d see to it. He needed to write in himself all his fever hopes.

This part was not without self knowledge. Phoebus looks at you and there is shame in him. He doesn’t articulate it, but he knows he was tricked.

Widow Mrs. Evans left, but came back with a couple of the hands who worked for Mouth. She decided to spend some time reorganizing the larder. Real intent-like, with no interruptions. Phoebus started sleeping outside.

When Will came, he was in a bad way. He got told the negroes killed everybody and ran off to the mine. He went after them. Phoebus didn’t reckon he had a gun.

Phoebus doesn’t know what to make of the gunslinger that came this week. There was a big disagreement.

Phoebus moved into the grain shack, and Mouth talked and talked and talked and it hurt too much to listen, so Phoebus went and hid in the forest he’d found with Mazey, but the forest wasn’t doing so good and Mazey was gone, and all he had to do was pray the way the angel told him, but that hurt too….

Phoebus moves easily. Phoebus refills coffee mugs. He gets wood from outside and stokes the belly of the stove. Windrider is outside where the morning light touches him, and the frost is creeping down the mountains like hunting cats.

Phoebus hands him some gruel, and the Lakota shakes his head, but Phoebus just puts it on his leg, because food ain’t just for eatin’.

Phoebus comes back in, washes things, offers to mend some clothes. Apologizes there ain’t no eggs, as the chickens and their eggs had gone a while back. Eggs first, if that mattered.

Phoebus was at the end of his storytelling, and leaves you absorbing it, strength coming back into you from morning, or Windrider’s face that looked hard enough to chop ice, or the dead crops, or the smell of kerosene. Phoebus sits down, smiling a little happiness, not really knowing what he’s done this morning, but knowing he’s done something. He is a little proud.

Phoebus’ quiet manner and kindness that had nothing to do with the blessing almost gone from him made one thing clear: Pale Rachis knew exactly who it was choosing as the lynchpin of the Evans’ undoing. Wickedness, like infection, wants for its workshop that which will be most painful when fouled.

Things You Know’d Now What You Ain’t Afore

Pale Rachis

Is the spirit that ~~Cole~~Coal Browning spoke of
The spirit has these aspects:

Spirit Related to Nature (corrupted Corn Woman?)

Every Paling Needs an Anchor Whose Failing is a Suffering

Walks in the Deep Shadow *

New Learning: there are layers and layers of the world and some things naturally abide closer or further from the world of men

]]>http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/wednesday-october-11-1843/feed/12244Tuesday, October 10, 1843http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/tuesday-october-10-1843/
http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/tuesday-october-10-1843/#respondMon, 08 Jan 2018 17:31:57 +0000http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/?p=2240Read More]]>Father Massey, rising late from a whore’s night of overindulgence and self-guilt, was hesitantly shaving with a straight razor that Volkert was supposed to have sharpened for him.

He was paused almost at the beginning of the process by his grief over the lost not only of Volkert, but of Bern. He stared at his own Irish Eyes unsmiling.

]]>http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/tuesday-october-10-1843/feed/02240Arc of the hymgaishttp://rpg.simplecommunion.com/arc-of-the-hymgais/
http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/arc-of-the-hymgais/#respondTue, 29 Dec 2015 17:49:42 +0000http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/?p=2001Read More]]>Gathered they were behind the pale self-light of the failing fortress of Tar Tranwyn in the Kingdom of Tuhál.

Asked, they were, for their assent to questing. And answered, by the Laird of the place with the circle of all the Lairds of this place behind her.

Bound, they were, to the hymgais of the task:

Go unto the Teinwood, where the light springs. Find the nature of the danger lurking there, ye strange and varied gatherage, and foil or failing foiling, report it back that a group of arwr more suited to the task ye could not complete might be assembled.The Lady Cyrdaen could not be said to be overly pithy

Named, they were, each self-proclaiming, as to their wont or desire:

Brangwen the Traveller

Cwyn the Mad

Eyocha [the Vulfen]

Glenáin the Assessor

Joined they were by the Cyrdaen nephew, Dillan a woodsman by all accounts. To guide them he was, and act as sign of good faith. Evident it was that either the Lady knew not her nephew or she cared not for those she sent forth – such was the oiliness of the man’s character once outside the pale walls of the Tar.

A ruckus aboard the ship was raised when Glenáin the Assessor, raised ross upon one of their number – the Brood, who all of them but the Assessor knew plain to be of their number and assuredly no stranger than the strangest of the rest of them. That clanking tinker assemblage of clattering clunk belonged aboard the flat boat on the great, dirty Nain Mwr, and had the marbles and mask to prove it.

Routed, they were, to a small port town along the great river, and thence north to deliver supplies to and receive succor from the lord of Dun Mynn, on the north-eastern borders of the Teinwood.

Altered, their route was, by Cwyn’s proclamation which his cards duly laid plain:

On that tsráid: DEATH DEATH DEATH

Accepted, the augury was, and the disembarkment became a short stop, there in the mud in a Lordless place where Lordless things become more likely. A scuffle ensued where several people – and Eyocha – tried vainly to protect the stupidity of stevedores from hurting their bodies too badly. They did not succeed terrible well. It turned out that many of their number were gifted physically and in the ineffable Puissance that throbs in the dreams of the Dragon and the Serpent.

Abandoned, they were, at the old charcoaler’s dún by the scurrulous Dyllan Cyrdaen. Play true to the coward, he did, leaving them in the night and stealing not only the dunholder’s supplies, but also his wares to be sold back in the muddy ‘civilization’ of Mwrport.

Surprised, they were, that the Cyrdaen boy’s warnings about the charcoaler’s daughter were not misdirection. She was, it turned out, a bear. Betimes. A parting curse of a wizard who had passed by some time in the not-too-distant past. Luckily, Glen managed to flee with only bruises to body and ego, and his fire ate only a part of the roof before being put out.

P’ntri there were, in the night in the farmer’s fields. Gone they were by daylight’s coming, back inside the Teinwood.

Under the eaves of that wood they passed.

Miles in along the path that Cwyn set for them, they found the first Stranger. Tall she was, and short but massive and grey of limb. Wrapped she was, and her nose like a serpent dangled. Fallen, she had, upon the road. Died, she had, in a Godswood, up against a great copper beech with leaves like burnished fire.

Wounds she had, on her great body, and beyond that her suffering still was clear: a cold leeching of color from one of her great, flapping ears. Along the flesh it went: dead. Into her head it went as well.

The Magefire was not enough, it wasn’t, to destroy this infection.

Deer came – twins, one boy-crowned, one woman-eyed. Watch they did, the white not showing in their eyes. A decision they reached, and draw back the wood seemed to do from the tree.

Unlease his fire again, Glenan did, and the face of the Dragon was upon it. Strike and strike at the vast Beech it did. Give itself, sap and leaf, limb and branch to the fire. Sizzled wool and flesh, and infection.

Saved, they were. Save for the wailing light far off in the wood. And the fire with the Dragon’s face. Long it was since the Dragon had fed. Hunger the fire did. The beech tree fell, but not the fire….

Ran they did, toward the wailing light. Ran they did, into the Teinwood, the hymgais all around them, gods bounding in the dark at their sides.

Invisible

Beside, behind and around all the questionably-noble personages cluttering up plinths and squares and balustrades are the heroes not cast in synth and titanium. Those whose secret and costly movements truly bank the world into a new course.

The destruction of the Black Diamond ( the fortress of the terror that was the ManMaker ) was credited to the power of the Amber Pope’s Monolith in the plains below the Skycrystal Fields – although not by His Holiness Himself. Some said it was his Holiness’ power over the Orbital Arrays; some said it was a secret angel that serves only the Yellow Lord.

The men inside the dusky walls of the (former) Scorpion Sanctum outpost tell different stories as the years unspool. They tell of an Angel that came, crewed by great Savants of the Truth. They tell of the Captain – now called Quark – who left her Angel to lead them to safety during the following Reign of Terror as the Wingmen scoured the lands west of Uxphon. They tell of the Savants taking away the post’s commander.

They name the Savants: Grey Wanderer, the Ebon Priest, the Cloaked Woman, and often counted among their number is the man now called Speaker of the Aeon.

The men of the Scorpion Sanctum tell of a battle between light and dark in the sky above the Scorpion Sanctum, of a rain of light and sparks and the extinguishing of the Angel. Then a long silence full of terror as the Wingmen descended. And sometime after that: the great crack that heralded the breaking of the Diamond. Some said that the Scorpion commander, a Baron, was after all a betrayer to their cause; some say he was in the end a great servant of the Truth, and it was he who the Savants brought to unMake the Manmaker in the heart of his black fortress.

Speaking the Aeon

Sometimes called Light and Dark, a pair of ascetics have begun to wander the Steadfast. The tall, pale one calls himself the D’Roz, and preaches often to and of the importance of machine intelligences. The smaller, darker, older one often refers to himself as the Hasver of the Undying Truth (although by others, he is called Speaker of the Aeon). They speak of Truth as a kind of permanent revolution, as a mutable Undying thing. They preach compassion, wild-eyed curiosity. Anger comes to them only when those moved by visions and truth speak of them as though they were above all others, as though not everyone were a Speaker.

The Speaker can be found on a certain day every year in the 9th World’s most unusual places, wearing a metal set of strange glasses, staring up into the sky, as if searching for something.

Joining of the Lily

All over the Steadfast, communication has blossomed. A new medium has been born, called the Joining. Join stations have grown – seemingly of their own accord – in many places where people of good heart come together. Their sigil is a blue hand holding a white Lily. The Joining seems to be some kind of remote-connection telepathic link. Traffic seems to be prioritized by degree of connection, and the honesty of the communication. Of course, traffic implies a network… a growing network….

The Haven in the Valley

Down in the new Great Valley created by the evacuation of the Tithe and the Destruction of the Obelisk of the Water God, is a place called The Haven, or The Pyramid of Life.

A beautiful and ancient pyramid untouched by the years under the Tithe has become the center of a jungle and a small, thriving community of… the strange.

it’s said that anyone who has claimed their unique biological identity, anyone changed from the boring stock of humanity, anyone interested in the illimitable potentials of life is welcome here. And anyone who is not had best not make that known behind the living pillars that mark the entrances to the place.

The Pyramid is a center of learning, of peering into the building blocks of living itself; the Numenera is venerated for its capacity to build, transform and sustain life. Some have even said that a fearsome Nagaina came to perform services for the Lord of Life (as the master of the Pyramid is often known), and was bound by the Lord to perform some great task before being welcomed to return.

The Lord of Haven is said to be tall and slender, and grim, and to walk the halls talking to the air, or to himself, or perhaps a thin blue light reaching down from the sky. He is also said to have built the pyramid himself, and to take on strange shapes and guises as he works.

If you find yourself changed and different, or cast out, it is said you can call to the Lord of the Haven in the Valley through the Joining. Perhaps your enemies will be punished; perhaps you will be whisked to safety, or given directions to Haven or to some service you can perform for its benefit. Whatever the case, It is understood that the Lord of Life is not to be trifled with.

The Player of Games

In cities large and small; in dark alleys and on the floors of open-air auditoriums, the Player of Games can be found. Shrouded, this one is always, in a vast cloak that seems to have a life all its own. The Player’s voice is similarly shrouded. The Player favors the new style of Contest where living and machine intelligence are joined, and cunning contests ensue. Botmeet is the new (unofficial) sport of the Steadfast. Even in the country, in barns, boys and girls can be found testing and building and upgrading machines to be their partners, their honored and dangerous companions.

Those who contend with the Player of Games come away changed from the experience. Those who spend evenings over parts and drink and listen to the Players’ vision of a world to come – mad though it often seems – often become new favorites in the Sport.

Is the Player of Games dedicated? Yes. Is the Player of Games mad? Of course. How else could the player be so beloved?

Often, the Player is accompanied by an enigmatic woman who goes uncloaked, and whose strange looks at first put people off, but later draw them in… as she seems to have done with the powerful figure of the Player of Games.

]]>http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/truth-of-history/feed/01904Orienting to the Truthhttp://rpg.simplecommunion.com/orienting-to-the-truth/
http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/orienting-to-the-truth/#respondThu, 28 May 2015 16:03:58 +0000http://rpg.simplecommunion.com/?p=1899Read More]]>In the aftermath of the battle, they walked among the men, healing wounds, dealing with the dead – including making sure that the pale man, D’vorak the Endless, remained dead despite the particles in his body that were laboring toward his resurrection. Judging by Roz’ bruises, keeping him down was a good idea.

Thom tended to their spirits, reading from the Truth’s Compassion of Intelligence. The Gaian soldier Debonik was moved and sat by Thom, peppering him with classic questions.

Roz found a gravsled under the command tent, and a crystal radio there that was off. Takir examined the radio after Roz removed the antennas. As Agmanir, the man in the crystal void suit, spoke to them quietly about the taking of Urgrevek, and his son Digrevek who took up the Diamond Protocol to save the Gaians, Roz spoke in 2 voices:

Moyag: Is it time yet for the Arbitration?

Lily: I can’t keep this carrier wave away from you all much longer.

Hasver scanned the gaian soldiers – they had all been taken by the ManMaker just as the Truth soldiers had.

The group gathered.The Ward of the Sky, Agmanir, told them all of this had happened because of aggression from the Truth; that the moving north of the Amber Monolith.

Thom asked the Great Questions: what were they doing? What was their intent? On what basis were they moving forward, and were those consistent with the truth? They recounted their internal answers. Takir spoke his concern of the truth getting in the way of the Truth.

It was clear that the Moyag was the great beast in the sky holding Gaia’s Diamond Shapes; that something evil had infected the Gaian’s attempt to rouse the world’s great defenders.

Would they go to Digrevek the immortal skin changer who had become the Diamond Fist, the Great Artificer, the Manmaker?